A fresh, gripping fictional rendition of “the greatest story ever told.”
A debut novel that dramatizes the life of Jesus Christ.
Snow writes at the outset that Jesus is “the application that opens for us the possibility of an interactive life with the divine.” However, the author quickly dispenses with this computer-app conceit to settle into a far more traditional and effective enterprise: transforming the four Gospels of the New Testament into a novel. The narrator is “the Beloved Disciple,” and his story follows the standard outline of many similar works, from Taylor Caldwell’s I, Judas (1977) to Walter Wangerin’s Jesus (2005) and others. Readers meet John the Baptist and hear him preach the coming of the Messiah, then see Jesus begin his ministry and assemble his Apostles. Snow avoids the stilted language common to much biblical fiction, instead giving all his characters a clear, straightforward idiom—particularly Jesus himself, whose admonitions to his followers often sound distinctly pitched to modern readers (“First, you have to learn to sit still,” he tells a disciple. “Next, you have to finally learn to let go of all your own agendas and wait. Yes, wait, to be filled with your Father’s agendas”). Some doctrinal purists may quibble over the fact that Snow’s Jesus is very clearly depicted as a God-inspired man rather than as God himself. But what this approach may lack in Catholic theology, it more than makes up for in readability. When this human Jesus speaks to doubters, he sounds entirely believable as a passionate character: “It’s not the well person who needs a doctor but the sick,” he says at one point. “Think it through!” In order to add tension to the best-known plot climax in history, Snow introduces pages from the diary of Jerusalem’s chief priest Annas to the final act, and the gambit works: Readers will still be kept guessing, even in the midst of very familiar proceedings. The result is a first-rate historical novel that a reader of any faith will likely appreciate.
A fresh, gripping fictional rendition of “the greatest story ever told.”Pub Date: July 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-1499046892
Page Count: 402
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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